She fiddled with the jade Bakelite knobs on the radio next to her. “Lucky Lindy” followed him into the bright octagonal room with terrazzo floors and a fountain made out of Peeble tile set in a wall. The room was meant for flower arranging and other feminine country arts. Ambrose wasn’t sure if Ethan had been anticipating a wife who enjoyed ladylike pastimes or if the room was simply what one expected in any fine country house. He doubted May used it for flowers. There were no cupboards full of vases, no clipping shears or gardening gloves left in casual disarray.
But there was Ethan’s stash of hooch, hidden behind the recessed panels.
Ambrose fixed himself a small glass of gin, and joined May in the living room. As he lowered himself in the seat across from her, he felt the warring consciousness that dogged him nearly constantly now.
He wanted to be anyplace but here. There was no place else he’d rather be.
“Arabella’s coming tonight,” May said, as if she’d ordered his favorite dish for dinner. She organized a dinner party every Friday night, always with an eligible female acquaintance “rounding out the table.” Ambrose noted that she’d not invited Arabella until now, one of the few girls he would have liked to see.
“Your sister, too.” She rattled the ice in her glass, her drink nearly gone, and he wondered if it was her first or her third. She was sunk down in her chair, glum. He inquired about her week, and after a moment she leaned forward. “Do you think . . .” He could smell the herbaceous liquor on her breath from his seat, her voice low, as if afraid of being overheard. “Do you think there was anything Ethan could have done to prevent it?”
“Is that what they’re talking about?” Ambrose’s interest was piqued. His father would barely tell him a thing, had shut him out so completely from Sandusky, had claimed everything was in order. He should have known. Why else would O’Brennan travel all the way out here? Ambrose made to stand, to go in and insert himself in the business he wanted to be a part of.
But May stood and quickly grabbed his wrist. Her face showed true concern. She mentioned the fire in Sandusky every time he saw her now.
“Likely not,” he answered truthfully, looking in her eyes, though it was true he was only trying to placate her. “You can’t prevent tragedy. It’s all in how you deal with it afterward. That’s all there is, really.”
“You know he sealed them in there.” She jerked her head toward the door. “He made O’Brennan do it. O’Brennan shouldn’t have agreed, should have advised him against it. What good’s an Irishman if he won’t put up a fight when it’s needed?”
Looking at May’s face, he realized the source of her dislike of the lawyer—misplaced blame. “Ethan was acting on the best advice he had at the time. I’d be surprised if O’Brennan didn’t try to find some other way around it. That’s the recommendation with seam fires. They can damage the town if you’re not careful. You don’t think he’d do it callously?” he asked at the look on her face.
“He could have tried to save them. They managed to get Ethan out before they closed it.”
“Well, you were here, not me, but I’d imagine he saved more lives than he didn’t.”
May only looked out the window. “You’re right. He was here,” she said.
In the intervening weeks, he’d expected the pull he felt toward May to lessen, to ease in her close proximity, the anesthetizing effect of familiarity.
But sometimes, at times like this, the urge to touch her rose in his body, unchecked. Those were the times he forgot she was his brother’s wife. Times when he remembered that he’d known her first.
“They’ll be a while,” she said.
“Then come outside.” He offered his hand casually, and when she didn’t take it, he headed out the French doors. He felt May follow, but then she overtook him, purposefully guiding them away from the pond and the tennis house, down a straight path mown through a hay field, dotted with blue chicory, goldenrod, and Queen Anne’s lace, grown tall and not yet cut. A red-winged blackbird dove at their heads, clicking and shrieking, protecting a nearby nest in the grass.
He noted she’d refilled her glass before bringing it with her. He remembered a friend in college advising that one could tell when a person had trouble with drink by the way she held the glass like it didn’t matter, but never let it out of her grasp.
“He killed those men for money,” she finally said. The bright blue of the sky somehow mitigated the harshness of her words. As if in the open field of burnt hay and wildflowers even the ugliest things could be said and rendered bearable.
“May . . .” Her accusation was the beginning of making a case against Ethan, a convincing of herself.
“For convenience, then.” Her turning against Ethan made him wary, but faintly hopeful.
“They were already dead. It was a sacrifice. Who’s to say he didn’t save more lives than if he hadn’t . . .” His role as Ethan’s defender was awkward, and he was embarrassed to realize it made him feel magnanimous.
“Sacrifice,” she hummed over the word. “The ends justify the means. In the end it was for the best. That what you mean?”
“His arm . . .” Ambrose stated. “Surely you can’t doubt his seriousness.”
“His seriousness about what?”
“About saving people.”
“People?” She turned to him with a blank, uncomprehending face. “He saved me.”
Ambrose’s vision narrowed, as if May were the only thing in the world.
“It’s me who he saved,” she continued.
Ambrose felt a confirmation of something glimpsed in his periphery since his return, half-seen in the way she unflinchingly took Ethan’s damaged hand, in the way Ethan hovered behind her chair, in the way she turned the pages of his newspaper, in all their intricate rituals.
“But why? How were you even there?”
“The fire had been burning. I couldn’t believe they were just going to sit there and wait for it to burn out. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t come up with anything to do to put it out.” This was a familiar line of May’s, and he was concerned she was about to veer off when she seemed to right herself. “Ethan had already gone with your father. I’d been sitting around, feeling useless, and so I took the train over. I thought at least I’d join the bucket brigade, talk to the women, something. And I was stupid. I was . . .” She stopped, controlling her breathing, fighting tears. “I can’t look at you when I say this, but I was thinking of you. I was thinking of a way to make you understand that I was as adventurous as you, that I’m not some ineffectual . . . I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me near the fire, so I just grabbed a bucket and ran in.
“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Men were yelling at me to stop, but I thought they were being overly cautious. I wanted to help. But I didn’t realize how dark it’d be inside. The smoke . . . I got confused. I couldn’t get out. Someone told him I’d run in, and he came in after me. Pulled me in the right direction, but not before a beam collapsed on his arm.”